


I'll catch you before you know you're falling

by Kat2107



Series: The Bull and his Duckling [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Discussion of Death, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Spoilers for Bull´s personal quest, sappy idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 00:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2893124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the day the Chargers almost died, two men sit in a tavern.<br/>This is not the first time one of them has lost his country, his home and everything he stood for.<br/>Bull thinks, he doesn´t need to talk.<br/>Krem thinks, Bull is full of shit. </p><p>There are things no amount of ale and pep talk can fix.<br/>But you need to start somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll catch you before you know you're falling

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon 1: I´m convinced, this happens.  
> In the game Bull talks to the Inquisitor and Cole, but if you think, Krem did not take care of him...
> 
> I am on the other hand very convinced, Bull is one of those dominant people who just totally get off on trust.  
> Taking care of people, wanting people to let him take care of them. A privilege, not a burden. 
> 
> Also headcanon: Krem is a sneaky little shit and nobody can convince me otherwise.
> 
> Spoilers for "Demands of the Qun"

It takes the whole keg of beer Bull got them, several reminders of Stitches to not pull the, well, stitches, but finally, after Rocky too succumbs and goes to bed, silence settles over the tavern. Everybody else has long given up. You can't outdrink and out celebrate the Chargers fresh from a life or death battle field.

If anybody noticed Krem refraining from alcohol, they didn't mention it.

Bull, of course had. Which is why Krem now feels his eyes on his back, as he makes his way to the deserted bar and the ale keg. The barmaid knows of it. Her and him have a silent agreement that coins appear and ale vanishes, no questions asked. It's his go to strategy when he needs to deal with one of the Chargers. Or all of them.

Walking makes him feel all the bruised muscles, the bone, Sticher says is probably cracked, the cuts, the burn mark on his thigh... all the superficial, insignificant injuries that won't kill him and didn't kill him today. His left shoulder, the shield arm, feels heavy and sore, too many blows - magic and not - covering their retreat.

But nothing hurts like the subdued look of pain and relief in Bull's eyes.

The others probably don't understand all of it, they know, yes, but granting them the relief of not knowing the moment of their deaths is Krem's job. This was his command, before anybody elses.

He could have called a retreat. He didn't.

Putting the objective above the life of his unit is his job, too.

They had trusted him to make the right call and he had – wait for Bull.

"I thought of something, chief." he says as he pulls both their tankards through the water basin.

They sometimes do this, talk late in the night, just the two of them. Planning, going through problems, provisions, logistics. Past battles.

“Did you know, I would literally kneel and bend my head, presenting my neck for you to bring that monster of an axe down on it, should you ever ask." Bull's head snaps up, the movement so aprupt there is a sound to it, a shocked and startled swish of air… not unlike the sound the axe makes as it comes down on someones neck, actually.

Krem looks up, very deliberate, right into the Qunari's unnervingly direct gaze. That look packs a punch, seeing through all the fake layers a person wraps around themselves to shield from the world. Krem is better at that than most, his training probably harsher than even Bull’s. Not now though. He lets them fall and stands soul bared naked before the Bull's gaze. "You know that, right?"

The silence stretches. Krem takes great care to wipe the tankards, regretting how much you can't pretend to polish wood.

"What are you trying to tell me, Krem de La Krem?" A silent warning, a touch more gravel to that deep voice.

Krem doesn't avert his eyes. There are people, a lot of people, having trouble looking the Bull straight in the eye. He needs to use that pun more often.

The beer, still fresh enough and foaming gently, fills into the mugs and he carries them back to their seats. Perhaps overdoing the limp a little to buy time.

"We survived today, chief."

"And so you did."

"Because you called us off in time."

"So I did."

"Things got hairy for a moment there with the venatori during retreat."

"But you had it."

"Yes."

The Bull takes his tankard, their eyes locking again.

"So?" He takes a deep pull, all humor gone with nobody around to placate.

"If you hadn't, we'd be dead." The hand that lifts the mug falters for the fraction of a second and Krem is faintly amused how Bull believes being around him, watching him watch has not sharpened Krem's attention to a fine blade; how he still thinks, he can get away with something like that going unnoticed.

He also sees the flicker of pain, the raw wound, the price Bull paid. Which is why they're having this talk. This is a wound that might heal. They got him. They're his, but he's theirs in a way that Bull, for all his intelligence, all his ability in reading people never truly understood. Because he had been Qunari, had always had the Qun. Had never fallen so hard, he needed catching. Had never not had a last fall back to rely on.

"I need you to understand something, chief." Krem doesn't sit, instead leans against the wall. He needs the added leverage of greater physical height. "I need you to understand that, should you ever need to make a decision like this again." Here he has to make a conscious decision to keep going, speak past the lump in his throat that forever will be a lot of old pain. "I will gladly go to my last breath, knowing..." Krem takes a deep breath, wrenching back control and screw it, if Bull notices. "absolutely knowing it was, because there  absolutely was no other way. And be happy about it. And the others will know, too."

Bull's gaze has dropped into the swirling depth of his tankard right at the beginning. He doesn't move. Nor does he speak and the silence settles heavily for both of them.

It's the Qunari that clears his throat and looks away in the end. "Shit." He swallows, draws a deep pull. "And here I was wondering why the hell you didn't get wasted tonight."

Krem laughs and finally lifts his tankard to his lips.

"Do I get to make a joke and cover up you ever said that?" The tiniest touch of humor in Bulls voice paints the pain a touch less red. It can't stop the wound from dripping.

"No."

"Do you want me to ask why?"

Krem shrugs, his lips pulling into a smirk, a lot softer than most will ever get to see.

"Try me."

There is no hesitation.

"Why, Krem? Though I'm almost afraid I know the answer."

“Had we died today - and while I am grateful beyond measure, an alliance with the Qunari isn't a small thing to give up, not even speaking about what they did to...sorry, with you – anyways, had we died today, you would have died with us. A betrayal like that? The Iron Bull wouldn't have survived.”

“Hissrad would.”

“Yeah. I give a rat's ass about Hissrad. He isn't you.” Krem expects denial, a retort, but either Bull is too shocked, or Krem is very right. “And it's not going to happen."

Another chug, another deep breath. "I know, I absolutely know, the only time, you'd be willing to sacrifice us, is an "us" or "everybody" situation. And so do the others. They maybe haven't grasped that completely today, but they do." Krem sees the Qunari shudder and because he knows him and because he's a cheating little bastard, he adds the final blow. "Yes, I trust you that much."

Bull's eyes narrow, as he looks up, his nostrils flare, lips twitch. "You didn't."

"Use that gigantic trust fetish you have against you? Hell I didn't."

 

***

 

_It's a simple tavern along the road. By the time, they had made it there, Krem was barely more than stumbling, putting one foot in front of the other, as he had done on so many marches in the army. Sleep with your eyes open, whatever you do. Just don't stop. He had dropped dead and slept the day away, not waking once, as soon as they had arrived.._

_And as he wakes,  seeing Bull sit and block the room's door, relaxed, but alert, he knows the Qunari has not closed his eye once. Krem might put it up to exhaustion, might blame wounds and blood loss, but he ever only slept as much as he absolutely needed when he wasn't alone and safe, waking at the first opportunity._

_It's as if his mind knows.  For a moment he feels his heart stop, a touch of fear coating his tongue at that unfamiliar, yet instinctive level of trust. Krem doesn't have that. Never had. Never has had a chance to develop it._

_Now they're here though. And nobody will kill Krem or sell him into slavery or torture him to death for being "wrong"_

_Of course, he's a deserter from the imperial army, hunted as a traitor in his homeland. He has bled for Tevinter, but it never really had been home. Not for him. Unwanted, and yeah it stings. But not half as bad as it did 5 days ago._

_Not expecting betrayal any second is weird, asks for reciprocation. He might learn that still._

_"We need to check on your eye."_

_"Which eye?"_

_"Harsh." Krem aborts the laugh more for the sake of his ribs than any sense of decorum._

_He insists. Faint traces of blood have soaked through the bandage and there is a morbid curiosity to see the damage. Also, infection in that spot might even kill a man shrugging off the initial injury like the Bull had._

_In the end, he has to make a deal to let the Qunari tend to the cut on his side. He can't give less vulnerability than he demands, is what the Qunari reasons. He's right, so Krem agrees._

_As the warm water soaked cloth gently loosens and wipes off layers of flaked blood and the rivulets run deep rust still, maybe it's then Krem finally understands what he Qunari did._

_The cuts run deep into his skull, cut into skin and bone,  are forever etched into the his face. The flesh around the eye socket is raw and vulnerable and the guilt a heavy weight in Krem's stomach._

_"Qunari. The savages. The monsters we need to fight to protect the civilized imperium."_

_He knows the Bull listens, eyes closed though never inattentive._

_"Yet that civilized imperium persecuted me, tried to kill me, branded me and sentenced me to death. And a savage sacrificed his eye for a guy he didn't know."_

_"It's never those on top who recognize the injustice, kid." His chest rumbles with the ironic scoff. "And don't make me a stand in for my people. We are not half as perfect as I seem."_

_As Krem fixes a fresh bandage over the skin and bone heavily covered in healing salve, Bull's hand is very discretely steadying him to keep him from swaying._

_"What would you be doing, if you weren't we me, Krem de la Krem?"_

_"Sell my sword. I'm a soldier, it's what I do." He's all business about it. Loyalty and pride and duty things of the past._

_"Glad I was the first bidder then. Should you ever want out of contract, you tell me, Lieutenant. The eye is not a debt to be paid off. I don't need a reason to find trouble with 'Vints. Though you were a very convenient excuse. Understood?"_

_"Understood loud and clear, chief. You are a bloody savage and might just eat me for breakfast, so I'm not to get my hopes up for birthday present or some shit."_

_"A silver for each day of work for a soldier. Five for an officer."_

_"Works for me. You want a bow on that bandage?"_

_***_

 

Krem laughs. "Bull, you literally wear my life etched into your skull! That grove on your forehead? Pardon, the grooves. This is the death sentence my own people imposed on me, because I wasn't what they wanted. I didn't fit in and they executed me for it. They didn't just try. They carried it out."

“And you waddled after me like a lost little duckling ever since.”

“And never once regretted it. Alright, there was this thing in Ferelden, with the daughter of… the thing, we agreed to never speak of again. And besides, I was a lost little duckling.

But I'm not anymore.”

He reaches down at that and grabs the tankard, Bull is only fiddling idly with, and goes to fill it again.

“That man, The Iron Bull, you waddle after so loyally… it was a ruse, Krem. An identity, I gave myself to do my job under the Qun.”

“You keep telling yourself that, chief. The Iron Bull is as real as any of the other Chargers, he's as real as any of us. And if we had died today, he'd died with us, hadn't he?” Krem hands him the beer, searching the familiar face for something to understand what's going on in Bull’s overly complex thoughts. He's as closed off as he ever gets, as locked up behind his barriers as Krem tries not to be right now. “You know, IF the Bull weren't real, you'd be left with nothing now.” This time he sits, hopping onto a table, locking his feet behind one of the legs.

“But shockingly, as bad off as you are right now, “nothing” is not even close. The Bull has us. YOU have us, all the stupid little duckling traipsing after you.” At this the Qunari snorts a suspiciously wet chuckle, gaze dropped firmly on his tankard again, as if there was truth to be found in the beer.

“And finally, someone once told me some like this… let me see, if I can capture the essence of it..

‘You may not have a country, but you don't need one. You don't need a fucking country that cuts you off as easily as this, after everything you have done for them. Just because you DARED feeling something they didn't approve of.’ They don't deserve you. But you, the Iron Bull, deserve a damn family and it's what you have, this is what we are.

Let's be real here, chief, you always go around telling everybody how we're yours. Guess what, you're ours as well. Deal with it.”

The Bull groans deeply and slouches deeper into his chair, eye trained on the wall above Krem's head.

For a moment, the Lieutenant feels faintly guilty, not enough, though, to stop what he´s doing before the Bull speaks again.

“I almost sacrificed you up on that hill. I couldn't make the decision to save you. I had the Inquisitor make it.”

“Bull… I wouldn't give a man that much power over my life who decides shit like this on a whim. Seriously, though, leaving that decision to their worship? What result did you expect exactly? Have you met them?”

At that a deep, rumbling laugh is startled from Bull that slowly turns into the heavy, real laughter, Krem knows so well.

“And still you want me to sacrifice you, Krem de la Krem?”

Bull had been subdued, faking admirably, but noticeable to someone knowing him so well, now he emerges, the larger than life personality real again, not a put on Iron Bull identity he uses to fool them into thinking all is well.

“I want you to survive should you have to. If it comes to that? It's us or all of us, we know that chief. I wasn't joking.  Trust us a little, mom.”

“Can we get any sappier?” Krem has him, he knows as soon as he hears those words. Brought him back from the edge, safe, if a little worse for wear. Getting through all the “Tal Vashot” thing needs someone else, but the Inquisitor should have that covered admirably.

“Dunno... We could hug?” As he turns his head a large arm is draped along the back of his chair and he feels the laughter reverberate within his own body.

“Shouldn't you at least buy me dinner first?”

“That's not sappy, chief, it's sexy, Also: Ferelden, that thing, we don't talk about.”

“Ah well, then get me more alcohol, my sad little duckling.” He says it, but gets up, grabbing Krem's tankard while going.

“And Krem?”

“Chief?”

“If it comes to that, I'll be fucking going with you. That clear?”

“As day, chief, as day.”

He doesn't add how much the inquisitor won’t let that happen. One must know when to let a man keep his illusions.


End file.
